Showing once again that government is the problem, not the answer.
Thanks for posting this.
This shouldn't surprise anyone.
FEMA should hire Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes to handle the acquistion of emergency food/water/materials and the transportation of these needed items to disaster areas.
Then, FEMA can hire the Salvation Army to distribute what is needed to the needy. Keep the Red Cross out of this. We saw their greed post 9/11.
Then, we can donate to the providers or the Salvation Army and eliminate all of the greedy paws that show up after any disaster like Jihad Cindy's group of pseudo vets.
Last but not least to really frost the left wing, Haliburton should be hired as the overall Project Manager in damage control, clearing and rebuilding.
Case in point: I recently cleaned out the Wal-Marts in my local area of Duck brand mounting tape (the removable kind).
I bought the entire inventory of this tape in the stores in Hudson NH, Chelmsford MA, Tewksbury MA, Hudson MA, and Salem, NH.
This represents about $150 worth of tape. A tiny drop in the bucket with Wal-Mart.
Nevertheless, within a few days, the stores completely replenished their stocks of this tape.
Not really much *news* that succesful chain store operations have established, efficient transportation/ communication/ supply infrastructure that exceeds the capability of gov't organizations. Just a plain old fact.
Given GM's current financial woes and slow sales, I'm sure that they now wish they had moved inventory into New Orleans prior to the hurricane!
Great piece; thanks for posting it. One of the things that jumps out at me is that WalMart has decision makers in place to, well, make decisions. Compare/contrast with how the gubmint typically reacts: press conferences, blame shifting, finger pointing, demagogery. None of this is really all that difficult: identify the problem; decide how to react to it; execute.
I was shocked at the positive press that a PBS show allowed for WalMart
on the "NOW" show (that Bill Moyers used to host).
The show had a townhall of hurrican evacuees and city, state and fed
officials at the PBS station in Baton Rouge.
The host (David Broncoccio?) allowed the mayor of one of the New Orleans
suburbs to loudly declare about how WalMart trucks were the first on the
scene in his city (Slidell?).
I was suprised that the host (and editors) allowed the mayor to give
such praise to the Evil Satan WalMart.
WalMart bump!
BTTT
Lesson: FEMA should have contracted Wal-Mart to get supplies into the region. Then let Guardsmen move the goods from the nearest Wal-Mart to the front lines.
No huge surprise here. Wal-Mart trounces competitors almost entirely because of the efficiency of its "just in time" supply chain. They don't keep a lot of inventory in warehouses, and they don't let the shelves go empty. They balance shipments from one place to another so their truckers rarely have deadhead runs.
What? Six to 10 people staff? They're kidding, right? Gotta be... Or, or, or, we're paying "Homeland Security" / CIA / State Emergency Teams, etc., waaaaaaaay too much money for staffing. No bang for our buck. Colossal waste of money. Zip protection for many dollars...
"...because it has an emergency operations center that is staffed every day around the clock by decision-makers who have access to all of the company's systems. "
FEMA has basically the same thing. I've seen their EOC in Atlanta. Very impressive. The biggest difference to Walmart is that FEMA doesn't have any control of the distribution process. They must rely on outside sources which greatly vary in dependability. They can request resources, but they have no way to control the response. This is why the military does so much better than FEMA. The military, like Walmart, control their own resources and the distribution of them.
And how many MOM and POP price gougers did they put out of business by rushing in CHEAP or free merchandise? EVIL WM! BAD! BAD!
;) sarcasm off.